


and now i'm melting from my wings

by harsassypotters



Series: Harry Potter fics! [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Canon Era, Dark Harry Potter, Drabble, Gen, NO TOMARRY, References to Torture, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28837959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harsassypotters/pseuds/harsassypotters
Summary: The thing about the Magical World is that it really does have an unfortunate resemblance to dominoes-- everything is so utterly dependent on everything else working perfectly that one piece toppled at the wrong (or right, depending on which side you’re on) time can destroy the entire mural.And Harry Potter is good at nothing if not destruction.
Series: Harry Potter fics! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2114541
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	and now i'm melting from my wings

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a long time since I've written a Harry Potter fic--strange, since it was the first fandom I was ever in and I'm literally known around the school as the "Harry Potter Obsessed Girl."
> 
> Title from Angel on Fire by Halsey. 
> 
> Just for clarification--this fic is canon divergent from Order of the Phoenix (or, more specifically, the Department of Mysteries battle) onward.

The thing about the Magical World is that it really does have an unfortunate resemblance to dominoes-- everything is so utterly dependent on everything else working perfectly that one piece toppled at the wrong (or right, depending on which side you’re on) time can destroy the entire mural. 

Harry Potter is good at nothing if not destruction. Ever since his stupidity lured his godfather to his death, or maybe since the same thing happened to Cedric, or maybe it all started way back at the beginning, when his mother didn’t save herself for his sake and he was put on the front step of the Dursleys, forever an unwanted stain.

He begins with the Daily Prophet. Fascinating, really, how ink is such a simple thing, but printed in the right formations, it will form words that will form sentences that will form lies that people will gobble up like chickens fed corn kernels. When the staff are suitably slayed--the gory scars, bloody and mottled, should keep the few smaller news outlets too fearful to take up the mantle--the Wizarding World is stumbling in the dark, blind and afraid, the only sounds the rumors taking root in their heads.

The Ministry is reeling after the loss of its backbone, and that is when Harry strikes. For having spent years studying every curse under the sun and uncovering ancient magical tomes in half-forgotten libraries, Aurors are remarkably unprepared for guns and timebombs. 

Now their army is gone. It is time for Harry to build his.

The purebloods aren’t as wealthy as they would have the world believe--generations of interbreeding and money staying in the same wasteful hands has all but dried it up. 

The process is simple, really, so much so that Harry would wonder how no one had thought of it before if he hadn’t known firsthand what a bunch of  _ idiots  _ wizards were: exchange his solid gold galleons for money--a  _ lot  _ of it--in a Muggle pawnshop, then trade it all in for galleons at Gringotts. Repeat, repeat, repeat, until he needs to rent out a new vault.

The purebloods and Death Eaters don’t really gain anything at the hands of Voldemort, other than pain when they fail and a few drops of a distant, distant promise for supremacy when they do not. Gold is much more real, can be turned over and over in one’s hand in a way promises cannot, and it is surprisingly easy to bribe them into revolting.

Harry is the one who delivers the final blow to Voldemort, washing his face and taking a bath in his blood.

They wrestle control from the Ministry, though  _ wrestle  _ may not be the correct word. It’s more of a tug-of-war, the Ministry giving away their end shockingly early. The purebloods always had influence, and everyone is already afraid of what happened to the Aurors--organs splattered on the walls like paint, blood staining the floors.

It’s what happens to the purebloods, too, once they’re done. Gold doesn’t buy loyalty forever, and it’s better to get them out of the way before they become too power-hungry.

Harry builds his next army from the dregs of society instead of the top: the werewolves and giants and hags. The ones who are so used to being treated like scum, to scavenging for scraps in backwater pubs, that they are willing to sell their loyalty to the first person who offers them decent pay. 

They have so much raw strength that they’ve only ever hated before, and wizarding society is cowed easily, generations of instilled fear and superstition forcing them to keep their eyes on the ground and wands in their pockets.

Still, the one with money is the one with power, and Harry surrounds himself with Muggleborns and Squibs alike to help him incorporate Muggle concepts, from technology to brothels. It’s almost disappointing, what an easy success it is. 

The Wizarding World is on its knees, caught between power and awe of Harry James Potter, ruler by power and money.

He has his enemies brought to him on practically a silver platter: the Dursleys, Albus Dumbledore, Dolores Umbridge, the ones in the Order who dangled information out of his reach even as dreams tore his sanity apart and he was lured to the Ministry, his godfather following. All the people who took the young, misty-eyed boy who stumbled into the Wizarding World at age eleven and slowly broke him into something unrecognizable.

He tortures them for months on end, until he sees torn skin and red blood out of the corner of his eyes with every step he takes. When they finally die, he sulks for hours, his mind whirring with ways he could have prolonged their suffering for even a moment longer.

He visits Ron and Hermione nine months into his reign, finding them sharing a flat together. He asks them to join him, to regain a sliver of the friendship they had had before everything so thoroughly went to hell.

Hermione doesn’t even answer his question, just stares at him with wide, wide eyes. “What  _ happened  _ to you, Harry?” she asks faintly, as if this is the first time she has heard of any of the events unraveling these past few months.

Or maybe it’s the first time it has truly sunk in, the first time she truly associates the boy who lent her his shoulder to cry on with the man impatient parents frighten their children to bed with.

Ron doesn’t speak, just looks at him with a mix of hatred and sorrow and love, fingering his wand as though Harry means to attack them.

He could. The Unforgivable Curses come to him as easily as breathing now, lurking in his blood like a second skin. 

But he’s not a  _ monster _ , despite all the evidence to the contrary. There’s still a hint of the loyalty, of the smiles and nudges and inside jokes they had all shared in the Year of Hell, and so, with a last parting nod, he turns on his heel and leaves without glancing back. 

He goes to Privet Drive, the place where his soul first curled up around the edges and began to rot. The Dursleys are gone, dead, but he can feel their ghosts as he drags his fingers along the white walls of Number 4. Petunia sniffs. Vernon scowls. Dudley glares.

He wonders what he would be like, if not for them. Was his descent into darkness, into bloody lusts for revenge, inevitable? Or would he be whole and unbroken, thinking more about his homework than what it would feel like to choke someone, to watch the life leave their eyes?

Harry has everything he could have dreamed of: power, money,  _ revenge _ , but as he traces the brass  _ 4 _ , he has never felt so empty. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please, I am but a lowly author in desperate need of validation. Leave a comment and stroke an ego. 
> 
> Also, as Harry doesn't know about Horcruxes at this point, he is still one, as are the Diadem and Cup and so on. So Voldy's not really dead, just...floating around. But all his Death Eater cronies are dead, so I guess he'll stay that way *shrug*.


End file.
